Speech
"Slaves on the government plantation"
August 4, 2010Tea Party Express National Press Club
I actually had to ponder a little bit when I received the invitation to be part of this thing, because I'm always hesitant to feed what I think is the sad and stereotypical effort on the part of the Obama faction — Democrats, the media, others who always seem to want to drive the politics of this country in a direction that sees everything through the lens of the phony category of race. It's a phony category, of course, because human communities really don't define themselves like breeds of dogs and cats, according to physical characteristics. They define themselves in terms of common values, in terms of their common commitment to an understanding of what is right and wrong, what is just and unjust, in terms of their common reverence for the Will that transcends our will, and which, in fact, determines the substance of right and wrong and justice and injustice.
That, I think, has — throughout the history of this country amongst folks of good conscience and good will — been the true definition of the American identity. We stand on the common ground of an understanding of justice that sees rights, that sees the difference between right and wrong, as dependent not upon willful attributes of ambition or natural physical attributes of color, but instead is dependent upon the will of the Almighty God who determined all of it and who has also determined that one of the attributes that we share as human beings is our unalienable right which leads then to a form of government based upon consent — and that is the spirit that the Tea Party movement expresses.
Now, sad to say, sad to say, we now live in a time when the exploitation of the history of black Americans, in particular, is rampant. And I say it's an exploitation because a lot of moral capital was stored up by the folks who fought in the name of justice to end slavery, to end the Jim Crow system of segregation, to restore a real understanding of civil rights that would respect the equality of black Americans. That moral capital, of course, is now being welded as an instrument of political war by those who are seeking to pretend that somehow or another there is an ideological definition of what it means to be a black American. I don't know whether people realize how racist that assumption is. Does anybody assume that because someone comes from Italian extraction, if they disagree with the socialists in Italy, they are somehow betraying Italy and the Italian character? Of course not.
The notion that somehow or another the fact that you take a different point of view about political issues, about economic approaches, about fundamental issues of human character and decency, that that somehow means you're a traitor to your race, is patently racist — the notion that you owe some allegiance or vote to an individual simply because of the color their skin that was constantly pushed at me by the America media. "Oh, don't you feel proud that Barack Obama . . . " Why should I feel proud of somebody who wants to destroy the unalienable rights of unborn children, proud of someone who, in fact, wants to return this entire country to the condition in which my ancestors sadly found themselves.
I guess people don't realize this, do they? "What did it mean to be a slave?" It meant that you actually had guaranteed shelter, guaranteed clothing — your master guaranteed your food, your clothing, your shelter, and a JOB! [laughter] Sounds interesting, doesn't it? That's exactly what the Obama faction, and the leftists, and the socialists, and the so-called liberals want to pretend is what all Americans should aspire to.
But I think having grown up wrestling with that heritage of slavery, understanding its true meaning, I have seen through that phony promise of socialism and government-dominated largess. It simply means that we shall all become slaves on the government's plantation. It simply means that we shall all sacrifice the dignity that God intended for us when He endowed us with those unalienable rights that are the basis for government by consent. To say that people who are then rising up against this effort to enslave through a political ideology the whole of America are somehow acting against Barack Obama because of his race is the worst kind of racism.
In point of fact, it's just the opposite. It is without the blinders of race that one sees the threat to human liberty. It is without the blinders of race that one understands the injustice of imposing government control on those whom God intended to be free. And it is, in fact, without regard to race that people all over this country are coming together — that they come together in rallies, that they come together in movements, that they will come together at the polls in November, not in order to reject anyone because of their race, but in order to lift up the alternative that is the true America, the free America, and that is an America that does not cater to group and race or wield epithets of race, as if they were instruments of political war, but instead stands on the solid ground of our common commitment to decent justice, to human equality, and to an understanding that actually sees people as capable of governing and caring for themselves, if only they are respected in their God-given right to do so.
This is not a racial matter. It is a matter that concerns all Americans, and I have stood proudly at Tea Party gatherings. I have stood proudly there not as a black American, not in the midst white Americans, not as an American who in any way exemplified this or that physical characteristic which I have in common with others, but rather as a human being who has in common with other human beings a commitment to our dignity, a commitment to our liberty, a commitment to a nation dedicated to hope that has stood as a beacon light of true hope for human beings all around the world, as decent folks struggle, as we will, to uplift that regime of freedom to make sure that government of, by, and for the people survives, and the will that put it here in the first place that preserved it in freedom through civil war and international war — that is the same heart. It is the same will that animates the people who gather in the Tea Party movement. It is an American will. It is a human will. It is a will that respects the will of Almighty God for our justice, for our liberty, and for the decent future of our children and grandchildren which we mean to preserve intact.
That, I think, has — throughout the history of this country amongst folks of good conscience and good will — been the true definition of the American identity. We stand on the common ground of an understanding of justice that sees rights, that sees the difference between right and wrong, as dependent not upon willful attributes of ambition or natural physical attributes of color, but instead is dependent upon the will of the Almighty God who determined all of it and who has also determined that one of the attributes that we share as human beings is our unalienable right which leads then to a form of government based upon consent — and that is the spirit that the Tea Party movement expresses.
Now, sad to say, sad to say, we now live in a time when the exploitation of the history of black Americans, in particular, is rampant. And I say it's an exploitation because a lot of moral capital was stored up by the folks who fought in the name of justice to end slavery, to end the Jim Crow system of segregation, to restore a real understanding of civil rights that would respect the equality of black Americans. That moral capital, of course, is now being welded as an instrument of political war by those who are seeking to pretend that somehow or another there is an ideological definition of what it means to be a black American. I don't know whether people realize how racist that assumption is. Does anybody assume that because someone comes from Italian extraction, if they disagree with the socialists in Italy, they are somehow betraying Italy and the Italian character? Of course not.
The notion that somehow or another the fact that you take a different point of view about political issues, about economic approaches, about fundamental issues of human character and decency, that that somehow means you're a traitor to your race, is patently racist — the notion that you owe some allegiance or vote to an individual simply because of the color their skin that was constantly pushed at me by the America media. "Oh, don't you feel proud that Barack Obama . . . " Why should I feel proud of somebody who wants to destroy the unalienable rights of unborn children, proud of someone who, in fact, wants to return this entire country to the condition in which my ancestors sadly found themselves.
I guess people don't realize this, do they? "What did it mean to be a slave?" It meant that you actually had guaranteed shelter, guaranteed clothing — your master guaranteed your food, your clothing, your shelter, and a JOB! [laughter] Sounds interesting, doesn't it? That's exactly what the Obama faction, and the leftists, and the socialists, and the so-called liberals want to pretend is what all Americans should aspire to.
But I think having grown up wrestling with that heritage of slavery, understanding its true meaning, I have seen through that phony promise of socialism and government-dominated largess. It simply means that we shall all become slaves on the government's plantation. It simply means that we shall all sacrifice the dignity that God intended for us when He endowed us with those unalienable rights that are the basis for government by consent. To say that people who are then rising up against this effort to enslave through a political ideology the whole of America are somehow acting against Barack Obama because of his race is the worst kind of racism.
In point of fact, it's just the opposite. It is without the blinders of race that one sees the threat to human liberty. It is without the blinders of race that one understands the injustice of imposing government control on those whom God intended to be free. And it is, in fact, without regard to race that people all over this country are coming together — that they come together in rallies, that they come together in movements, that they will come together at the polls in November, not in order to reject anyone because of their race, but in order to lift up the alternative that is the true America, the free America, and that is an America that does not cater to group and race or wield epithets of race, as if they were instruments of political war, but instead stands on the solid ground of our common commitment to decent justice, to human equality, and to an understanding that actually sees people as capable of governing and caring for themselves, if only they are respected in their God-given right to do so.
This is not a racial matter. It is a matter that concerns all Americans, and I have stood proudly at Tea Party gatherings. I have stood proudly there not as a black American, not in the midst white Americans, not as an American who in any way exemplified this or that physical characteristic which I have in common with others, but rather as a human being who has in common with other human beings a commitment to our dignity, a commitment to our liberty, a commitment to a nation dedicated to hope that has stood as a beacon light of true hope for human beings all around the world, as decent folks struggle, as we will, to uplift that regime of freedom to make sure that government of, by, and for the people survives, and the will that put it here in the first place that preserved it in freedom through civil war and international war — that is the same heart. It is the same will that animates the people who gather in the Tea Party movement. It is an American will. It is a human will. It is a will that respects the will of Almighty God for our justice, for our liberty, and for the decent future of our children and grandchildren which we mean to preserve intact.